Perfect
by PinkWhirlWind
Summary: It's well after the war. Duo's a surgeon. Heero's a diplomat. Duo had a bad day. He's about to confess his love at a state function, while singing a One Direction song, and missing a tooth.


Perfect

by Max

Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing, nor do I own One Direction's Perfect

Note: Happy New Year

The hospital was clean. It wasn't much else, but it was clean. The floors were worn thin, patched with thick paint over where the concrete showed through. The walls had art, but it was mostly stuff done by patients, doctors. There were ten floors of concrete and steel centered in an area of town long stewed in intergroup conflict and poverty.

Duo imagined the area centuries before as the home of Jazz and people who hadn't yet breached the sky. He wondered if they could see the stars then. Sitting in his office window, one foot propped against the far side, he leaned his head against the heavily painted blue wall and stared at a sky, trying to imagine where all the stars were on the other side of a wall of light. His braid hung down the wall, fluttering for a moment as a breeze blew through. One arm rested on a bent knee, his left hand, large and strong hung relaxed, a non-toxic and only slightly stimulating vaporizer hung from those strong fingers.

Sirens cut into the night and only then did he realize he'd closed his eyes. He took a drag of his vape, stared at the endlessly not really dark sky and for a moment wasn't sure if he were looking at buildings or light violated clouds. Either way, the siren didn't cut through light. Earth was claustrophobic most nights. Pinned like a bug in a bowl. He snickered at his own thought, because it didn't really make sense, but the sense of claustrophobia still made his skin crawl.

He took his time blowing blueberry mist slowly back over his lower lip. He could leave, of course. Pretty much any colony and a bunch of larger research ships had offered him a post. He didn't have to be here like a fucking bug trapped in a bowl that never got fucking dark.

It's just.

Heero was working with the UN. He was a policy diplomate-social-talker-make-nice-with-the -fucking-insane-people guy and being near him, even if they didn't go near each other anymore, was too big of a prize for Duo to let go. Heero. Fucking Heero Yuy. Duo ran his thumb over the aging and disreputable concrete of his building, his window, his hospital. Heero was the darkness, the calm, the blue ocean of peace, and excitement of spring. How Heero had become everything to Duo and they hadn't even spoken in five years or kissed or well, really spoken, not since they were boys in a war, well, Duo really did not fucking know the answer to that either.

He wondered if he was going to weather down like this building, just being ground away by air, by the toil of just being that someday he'd stop dreaming about Heero, because he would just stop dreaming all together.

He pushed a slide on his vape and set it to calming. Even if ... well, even if he did go talk to Heero. He was just a fucking dirt rat now. He didn't draw a salary from, but the hospital paid his school loans, gave him an office/room, and he got to eat in the cafeteria. He saw thirty patients a day, on average, and pulled four or five bullets a week. He had painted two floors of the place himself, a nice soothing blue.

Heero did stuff. He'd gone to the Academy Awards. The gossip rags thought he was going to marry Relena Peacecraft. There was strong speculation that he would take her name and be Heero Peacecraft... the power couple of humanity. Heero was beautiful. Heero was brave. Heero was splendid beyond all things that were splendid. Heero was the stars.

He heard the breath draw, her scream coming soon enough that he turned his head and saw her shadow before he saw her in his door way. Dr. Angela grabbed both sides of his door and the scream she'd been building for got swallowed in her inability to fully draw a breath.

Duo arched his eyebrow, drew on his vape, ran a thumb over his eyebrow, waiting on her to get her breath.

"He's got a gun! He shot Ryan! Oh god! Duo!" Angela broke down in tears, ran into his room, slammed the door, after a moment, locked it.

Duo took a slow breath. He bet this shit didn't happen at Heero's office.

He dropped his vape in his pants' pocket. "Who, Angie?"

"The ex-cop! We have his wife in the ICU still!"

"Shit," Duo said, sighing.

He could hear the more acrid scream of police sirens now. He did not want them in his hospital. He did fucking not. Half the bullets he pulled came from their guns. Fucking cops. Even Heero was tainted with that, law enforcement. Fucking. Hate. Them.

There was a darkness to him sometimes, a thread that went back to the first night of sleep lost to hunger, the first infected abrasion because dirt is like that. "Move. Stay here."

"What are you going to do?"

"What it takes," he said, voice black razors, his smile death.

"Oh god, Duo, are you okay?"

"Yeah. Fine. Move."

And then he was out in the hall and running. The power that had been in the boy was a flicker of the power in the man. In his peaceful moments he might dream of Heero, but these had become his people.

The main waiting room felt like it was tense with Ryan still laying on the floor in a spreading pool of blood and a large man slowly turning round like a broken hour hand, glaring at the patients and staff. Duo came at him from behind, running silent on soft soled shoes, coming down on him with the black soul of Shinigami. Duo landed on his back, an arm going around his throat, elbow going into his neck and then reaching around to grab the short barrelled rifle with one strong hand, all in one fluid motion. The man's eyes went wide, his mouth dropping open. Duo kicked him hard in the kidneys, driving him to his knees, as he sort of ran up his back and over his shoulder, taking the gun with him.

The sirens screamed outside and Duo's mind fuzzed, the past and the present blurring. Two guys dressed in tactical gear busted through the main doors, their own weapons raised. Duo blinked. His ears rang. His mouth was dry. In a split second he raised the short barreled rifle, but against his shoulder.

One of the officers touched the communication gear in his ear.

Angela screamed, "No! That's our chief surgeon!"

The beanbag hit Duo right in the face. His vision went black and his thoughts distant. He was falling. That was really funny. They hit him with a beanbag, like a sleepover, like they were all gonna have cocoa and hand jobs. He kept hold of the gun, managing to thumb the safety on as he went down.

The next thing he knew he was looking up at Angela as she hovered protectively over him. "Oh my god! Duo!"

He smiled crooked, so fucking glad to be waking up. His mouth hurt like a bitch and coppery blood trickled into his mouth. He licked his tongue over his lip, over the swollen fat lip, and then right into the missing tooth. "Where's ma toof?"

"I think you swallowed it," Angela said, slightly horrified. She glared at the now half a dozen tactical geared officers. "You could have killed the best surgeon in New York! What is wrong with you!?"

"We answered a call about a white man holding hostages at the hospital. He pointed the gun at us. He's lucky to be alive."

Another of them nodded. "Don't point guns at the police, son. Are you sure he's a doctor?"

"This is Dr. Duo Maxwell! HE's a war hero and maybe the best trauma surgeon on Earth!"

"Maxwell?" One of them said, leaning over, brown eyes narrowing. "Are you really a doctor?"

"Fuc yow," Duo said, giving his former colleague the finger.

"You idiots took down Duo Maxwell!" He snorted, smirking at his team.

"Can we get a picture together," one of the younger ones asked.

"No!" Angela growled. "Go fill out paperwork or something. We'll be fucking fine without you."

"I'm not sure this part of town pays enough money to get police coverage," another of them said. "So are we arresting this or that one over there?"

"No." Duo growled, getting to his feet, letting Angela help him. "I've got stuff I gotta do and that asshole," Duo said, pointing to the unconscious shooter, "is going to the psych ward where he belongs. I have room for you fuckers, if you wanna start learning to act like human beings."

"Maxwell, you have always been an ungrateful bitch."

"Well, with a partner like you," Duo said, his self righteous ire mostly wrecked from a swollen mouth and sore jaw, "I didn't have much to be grateful for! Thanks for your help. We'll take it from here."

A few hours later, Duo's face felt better. His tooth was still lost. Ryan was in the ICU. The shooter was in a padded room. All was right with the world.

But when Duo looked in the mirror, he knew... he had to tell Heero, at least. Life was rough. Maybe he wouldn't get another chance. He pulled out his phone, scrolled through his contacts and clicked. "Q!"

"Duo?"

"Yeah? You forget about me man?"

"No... you sound... odd."

"I got hit in the face with a tactical beanbag. My face is sore. Sorry."

"Do you need bail money?"

"No." Duo said, his courage failing. Maybe some things were better left unsaid.

"Duo, I'm so sorry. Did you get the invitation to our wedding? You are coming, right?"

Well, he didn't really know how he was going to pay for a ticket to L4. "I'd love to. I have a lot of work."

"We'll work it out. Heero is escorting Relena to a social function tonight. I'll send you an invitation to the event."

Duo sank down to the floor. "How did you know?"

"Really?"

"Sorry. I don't have anything good to wear."

"I'll open a line of credit for you at a men's wear shop. He needs to see you. Don't worry. You do more than enough good for the world."

"Thanks, Q. You'll be there."

"We will. See you tonight, Dr. Maxwell. Call me more often."

"Will do."

Note: There's comic :) I'll post it when I get home.


End file.
